Broken Irish

by Edward J. Delaney

Overview

"Epic in its scope but relentlessly compelling in its storytelling—not a common combination—Broken Irish is a splendidly readable and richly textured novel. Edward J. Delaney is an enormously gifted writer." —Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and Perfume River

"Truly indelible. . . . [Delaney] cares about details and understands their importance to the larger themes of loss, desperation, and betrayed loyalties. His characters are not merely vehicles for ideas, but rather fully realized, familiar people, whose failures are heartbreakingly authentic." —Boston Globe

As the millennium approaches, "Southie" is still a place where little distinguishes mob bosses from pillars of industry, the bullied from the bullies, and the pious from the pitiful. In this tough Boston neighborhood, six lives are about to converge: Jimmy, an alcoholic writer, whose life is unalterably changed after witnessing an accident; Jeanmarie, a teenage runaway, whose quest for independence leads down a dark path; Christopher, a young Catholic school dropout with a gnawing secret; Colleen, a war widow whose grief has blinded her to the needs of her son; Father John, a priest on the eve of forced retirement; and Rafferty, a wealthy businessman who hires a ghostwriter to tell his story.

In Broken Irish, Delaney trains his journalist's ear, his filmmaker's eye, and his writer's heart on each of their stories—creating a driven and deeply human narrative that pierces the core of the American experience. He also gives us a captivating portrait of South Boston in the late-1990s—a time when "Whitey Bulger has evaporated into the ether but his boys still kick around on the street corners . . . waiting for Whitey’s Second Coming."

Edward J. Delaney is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and author of four works of fiction, including Follow the Sun and Broken Irish, both published by Turtle Point Press. He lives and teaches in Rhode Island.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933527505
Publisher:	Turtle Point Press
Publication date:	09/06/2011
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.14(d)

About the Author

Edward J. Delaney is an award-winning author, journalist, and filmmaker. His books include the novels Follow the Sun, Broken Irish, and Warp & Weft, and the short story collection The Drowning and Other Stories. His short fiction has also been published in the Atlantic and Best American Short Stories, and featured on PRI's Selected Shorts program. Among other honors, he has received the PEN/New England Award, O. Henry Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He is also the co-author of Born to Play, by Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. As a journalist, Delaney has written for publications including the Denver Post and Chicago Tribune, received the National Education Reporting Award, and has served as an editor at the Neiman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. As a filmmaker, he has directed and produced documentary films including The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus and Library of the Early Mind.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Delaney has also spent time in Georgia, Florida, and Colorado, and now lives in Rhode Island, where he teaches at Roger Williams Universityand edits the literary journal Mount Hope.

Editorial Reviews

Delaney sets his new novel (after Warp & Weft) in South Boston, Mass., where a wonderfully realized cast of downtrodden characters struggle to overcome tough predicaments in the final years of the 20th century. After alcoholic copywriter Jimmy Gilbride loses his job, a rich entrepreneur offers him a lucrative ghostwriting opportunity; crestfallen widow Colleen mourns her military husband and struggles to raise her secretive 13-year-old son, Christopher, while offering clandestine help to Jeanmarie, a reckless teenage runaway with a sketchy boyfriend. Meanwhile, Father John is retiring from the priesthood with an overwhelming sense of uselessness and a guilty conscience. Christopher starts spending time with Jeanmarie, which doesn't sit well with her boyfriend. As the boy braces for violence and Colleen appeals to the church, blackouts, memory lapses, and liver problems get in the way of Jimmy's new job. In short, clipped chapters (nearly 100), Delaney gracefully guides his rich tapestry, his characters' serpentine circumstances converging toward conclusions that offer little catharsis. There's nary a blue sky in sight in Delaney's world, but readers will be captivated. The author continues to demonstrate great dexterity and storytelling acumen in his lyrical page-turner. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Booklist Editors’ Choice Award

New England Book Festival Grand Prize Winner

Massachusetts Book Award Finalist

Julie Ward Howe Prize Honorable Mention

Massachusetts Center For The Book “Must-Read” selection

Publishers Weekly “Pick of the Week” selection

"Truly indelible. . . . [Delaney] cares about details and understands their importance to the larger themes of loss, desperation, and betrayed loyalties. His characters are not merely vehicles for ideas, but rather fully realized, familiar people, whose failures are heartbreakingly authentic." —Boston Globe

"[Broken Irish] has a complex plot and a driving, fast-paced narrative. . . . Highly recommended." —Star Tribune

"Searing, unforgettable. . . .Though Broken Irish deals with dark subjects it doesn't come off as heavy-handed. Exceedingly clever, the connection between the characters isn't revealed until the very end of the book, making you want to go back to the beginning to sort out the pieces and see how these characters' lives are intertwined." —Missourian

"Glistens with poetic charisma. . . . Delaney does a tremendous job with the different voices. . . . Perspectives jump effortlessly from character to character, brain to heart, motivation to instinct, love to fear." —Brooklyn Rail

"A masterpiece." —Library Journal (starred review)

"Beautifully and heartbreakingly balanced." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Readers will be captivated. . . . [Delaney] demonstrate great dexterity and storytelling acumen in his lyrical page-turner." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In an artfully constructed story . . . Delaney tackles corporate corruption, the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, gun violence, and, especially, alcoholism (in searing passages on the ravages of drink that recall Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano)." —Booklist (starred review)

"Muscular and taut. . . . A great story that reaches into a reader's life [and] poses important questions about people, fate and community." —Shelf Awareness for Readers

"Epic in its scope but relentlessly compelling in its storytelling—not a common combination—Broken Irish is a splendidly readable and richly textured novel. Edward J. Delaney is an enormously gifted writer." —Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and Perfume River

"In Delaney's South Boston little is lost, nothing forgotten. Old sins, old wounds haunt his characters, young and old, and reverberate throughout his wonderfully complicated plot. Broken Irish is an enthralling, satisfying novel." —Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy and The Hidden Machinery

"An entire community is on the brink. Hope is the only hope. And faith cannot scrub the grime off its hands. With Broken Irish, Delaney delivers a gripping epic." —Adam Braver, author of Mr. Lincoln's Wars and The Disappeared

"If you're anything like me, you Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Stop. Reading." —David Abrams, author of Fobbit and Brave Deeds, at the Quivering Pen

From the Publisher

Southie, where the accent is more Irish than Boston. From where you might be able to get away but never escape. Journalist and filmmaker Delaney (Warp & Weft) tells the story of a handful of people in South Boston at the end of the 20th century. Jimmy is driving drunk behind three laughing young men in a convertible whose driver is braking and starting, trying to dislodge the one perched on the back; when he witnesses the neck-snapping fall, Jimmy vows never to drink again. Colleen and her husband pledged to get out of Southie, but after his death in a foreign war, she's still there with her adolescent son, Christopher, who has shut her out of his life. Father John started his priesthood in Southie, and now he is back, on the brink of a forced retirement. Jeanmarie, a Southie teenager, drops out of school and moves in with her boyfriend. These divergent stories come together in a compelling tale of desperation, lost opportunities, and revenge—all things Southie has come to represent. Each character is richly portrayed, and each stirs conflicting emotions in the reader. VERDICT A masterpiece; highly recommended for a wide audience.—Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll. Lib.

Library Journal

Broken Irish Americans from South Boston, that is—and there's plenty of brokenness to go around at the turn of the 21st century.

Delaney plots his narrative through parallel story lines, all of which elegantly converge at the end of the novel. Jimmy Gilbride has been an alcoholic for about 20 of his 32 years, and after untold binges—and a recent auto accident—he gets a job helping to ghostwrite the memoirs of Terrance Walsh Rafferty, an entrepreneur from Southie who made good and is now worth millions. Ironically, Jimmy has given up drinking (for the most part) so he can do this job, but it's just the moment when all those years of abuse are beginning to disclose problems with his liver. We also learn of the unhappy life of Colleen Coogan and her estranged 13-year-old son Christopher, who drops out of school and wanders around town, most days ending up in the library where he can indulge his passion in reading about medieval legends. In the evenings Christopher shadows Jeanmarie, a 16-year-old who's also left school to live with her egregious boyfriend Bobby, a loser who smuggles beer home to their squalid apartment from his job at the Liquor Mart. She has dreams of making it big as a model, dreams fed by slimy Marty, who takes pornographic pictures and encourages her to think he's going to make her a star. Finally, we learn of Father John, a soon-to-retire whiskey priest of dubious morality whom Colleen hopes will serve as a spiritual adviser to help her with Christopher. It turns out Father John has his own family secrets to bear.

Delaney keeps all of the incipient tragedy beautifully and heartbreakingly balanced through artful plotting and an unadorned but graceful prose style.

Kirkus Reviews